Microsoft’s Scroogled campaign is a hit – according to 3rd party research

Have you not seen the thousands of people running for Bing and Outlook.com, screaming that they have to get away from the evil organization that is Google? No? Well, neither have I. According to research collected by two 3rd party firms, the Scroogled campaign has been more than a success, "For Microsoft it’s a win".

Microsoft’s all negative and full attack advertisements have been a controversy for Microsoft fans and non-fans alike; they may sit on the ad shelf as one of the most ruthless technology campaigns around. We usually only see the direct-attack tactics used by Microsoft in political campaign ads.

Answers Research, has reported that after users visit the Scroogled campaign’s website, the favorability gap in favor of Google services drops from 45% to just 5%. In addition, the company has stated that over the previous summer, the chances of someone recommending Google to a friend has dropped by 10% and has increased by 7% for Bing.

According to Jonathan Symonds, Ace Metrix’s Executive Vice-President of Marketing, the idea that people would even consider switching to Bing over Google is enough of a victory and "Microsoft will happily accept these outcomes".

A Microsoft spokesman commented on the current campaign:

"The Scroogled campaign is having a huge impact as consumers learn the stark difference between what Google says and what Google does."

As one might imagine, Google’s reaction to the Scroogled campaign’s supposed results was no less than sarcastic - "Don’t think we have a comment on this one."

Whether you agree with the tactics Microsoft is taking in its Scroogled campaign or not – it is supposedly having a positive impact for the company and driving people away from Google at the same time.

Have any of your friends or family switched away from Google due to the Scroogled campaign?

Why?? What are you missing? MS has its free email service. You have maps which works. So whats' your problem with google? I see no reason why you should "need" google? WP runs just fine without any google services. Your life will remain exactly same if you don't use any google services.

Fact is that as yet, Google's profits from the Play Store are not threatened by WP. But WP is growing, and without solid Google apps its users are turning to non-Google services.

My frustration is that Google could be making money from WP customers! How hard can it be to make a WP7/8 YouTube app that shows ads? How about a decent Maps app they can use to gather location data? There's an opportunity here for Google to actually make a buck and they're not taking it. Hell, MS will make the apps for free, if Google would just let them do it.

Nobody I know cares about switching to Bing or WP. I still have my gripes about Bing having outdated information for companies and locations. I tried calling a restaurant and it had an old number that no longer existed. Switch to google, no issues for the number. I still use Bing when on my WP but outside that I still rely on Google for better search results.

Search engines from Yahoo, Dogpile, Mahalo to Alta-Vista, Bing and especially Google/NSA will have wrong information. Google/NSA is worse because of reads and then treats your personal email as if it was addressed to THEM.

That's funny. I was just going to post the same thing about Google failing me on a restaurant phone number, and that Bing had the correct one. Not only that, this restaurant had only been open for 8 months, and for whatever reason had to change their phone number.
I can't tell you why, but Bing seems to have the same results as Google, and I don't have to feel violated when I use it. That's why I use Bing, and Outlook.com

for me, atleast, Hotmail/Outlook has PERMANENTLY replaced Gmail and Bing is all over the place instead of Google.. since the day i got my first lumia, almost 2.5 years now... and yeah, my years old yahoo mail is still what i use for outgoing mails.

Google abuses everone, not just Americans. But it seems to me, because Google is an American company, it's up to the Americans public to tell them to stop. I doubt Google will care what the rest of the world has to say.

I just look at the Mac vs. PC ads and how the effects have lasted with my family. My sister bought a Mac couple years after those ads and insists that it SO much better because she never has problems with it. She of course still calls me a couple times a year to troubleshoot problems just like with her PC.
If she had a problem with her web mail before, it was Windows' fault. If she has the same problem now, it's gmails fault not her Mac. I think this is what will work out for MS. I don't particularly care for the Scroogled ads but they plant the seed of doubt in the average joe. Down the line any privacy leak will be associated with Google. I think MS knows what Apple did to them and now they are trying to do the same thing to Google.

When it comes to getting my job done I put aside my fannoyism. So if I can't find an answer for a code issue through Bing, I turn to google. But honestly, at least for the past several months, I've found that if Bing can't help me, neither can Google. Its been a while since I've run into an issue that I could figure out through google and not Bing.

I've never been the tin foil hat type. But google has really started to creep me out. First it was their ads based on the content of your emails. Yes they claim the data is kept anonymous, and I don't want to accuse them of lying. But it still creeps me out. And now I read they plan to show your friends ads that feature your freaking face and own words. That shouldn't worry me too much since I don't user google plus, but I know other companies like Facebook will follow their lead on this. Also does anyone notice that google always covers their tracks by providing opt out settings whereas Microsoft usually asks you for permission first?

Agreed. When you open a Word document on your computer that someone sent you in your email and words in that document begin to turn into hyperlinks, you know you've been scroogled. Which is why doing a basic uninstall of google chrome is not enough. You have to root that sucker from that hidden folder it puts on your computer as well. If you don't, they continue to infect your computer like a cyst.

I started my online life in 2008 with a google account. over the next few years i got comfortable to using google's services. But then came Windows 8 and I got an outlook account with the same @gmail.com
Since then I must say, Microsoft's serviced are at par if not better than google's. its just that both of them have their cons. I cannot open google docs while offline and there is not a sufficently good enough substitute to it from microsoft 'online' however, in the long run, I see myself switching over to skydrive as it can open my files both online and offline and I can download whatever i want.
Just wish there were more to Skydrive like google has provided.

"Whether you agree with the tactics Microsoft is taking in its Scroogled campaign or not"
Why shouldn't you agree, all Microsoft is doing is telling you the truth about google services and practices, that's why Google can't fight the ads, because they are true.

I was a Android fanboy up untill a year ago and would defend Google at any chance. Since using wp8 and w8 tablet Bing has become second nature and i even cringe when seeing my wife or kids use Google. Its not that Bing is better, but that it is beautiful and just works.

Idk, i just LOVE when google does a terrible job with its ad profiling, showing all ads as 1020s, or (false) thinking I'm a middle aged woman or something xP. (or its shows me android phone cases or iPhone cases, even though i have a 920)

I actually switched away from Google services, especially GMail, long before the Scroogled campaign. Privacy issues is one of them and secondly, in the case of GMail, I recently abandoned it after using it for many years (since my university days) because of the spam via tracking my actions, be it subscribing to some anti-virus or job application. Happens when I use my GMail account to to so.

I do not like google because they think they can decide for me. Still using search, but more and more moving to bing. Regarding e-mail, calendar and contacts I found MS is much better and I recommend it to everyone. Moved myself from google 6 month ago and do not miss it at all.

I switched from Google services to Microsoft services because of Google's attitude on creating a wp app for youtube. I'm not from US. So I don't get the best of the bing services. But, I will still stick with bing because Google's attitude sucks more than that.

I don't hate neither one. I use them both very frequently. I mean its never an issue when you have two search engines instead of relying on one. I just have better success with Google. But I'm on my phone more than home so Bing obviously gets used by default.

What I don't understand, is why is MS's "campaign" always considered negative, but the "I'm a PC" ads never were?
Why is anything MS says about google always viewed as an "attack" of some sort, but it's never viewed that way when google says something about MS?
Double standard much?

Bing isn't all that great in Canada. In fact, it's pretty bad. A search for a company name on google returns the information I want like the address and phone number - Bing doesn't do this for me. The only Google service I use is Search. Everything else has been migrated to Microsoft.

Really? I'm also in Canada and just tried to look up the name of a local restaurant to test your theory. Bing returned the restaurant's Facebook page, home page, and a couple of reviews. Google returned...well, nothing relevant. Look up "Rabbid Fox" without the quotes and see what happens.

I don't know that I'd switch due to the Scroogled ad campaign, but I find it entertaining. I'm a long time user of Yahoo! and plan to continue. I started my own compare campaign among my friends and family and can't get people to even try to use Yahoo! it seems like to me.
Google users are a lot like Apple users in this regard. They have their head buried in the sand. Do the same search on Bing, Google, and Yahoo! and you'll get very, very similar results.
I liked the Windows Live era at Microsoft. When they came out with the name Bing that kind of did it for me. It makes a better verb than Live but it just sounds stupid. You can Bing someone or Google someone but I'll just keep using Yahoo!

Not much news about Google and their new "shared endorsements." They can use your picture and reviews. You have to op out, not join. Go after that one Microsoft.
I use Bing for almost everything except shopping, image and domain search. Bing has to get better at that.

So, since Google is lying, then Google is evil. Since it's evil, don't use it. Use anything that is not Google. And ...
BING = (((BING..[infinite loop here] Is Not Google) Is Not Google) Is Not Google) Is Not Google :p

I never went to big G in the first place. Google was cute. It had free stuff. But it felt unrefined and prone to abuse. So now they sit as definitely the best mapping you can get, but that's about it for me.

I don't mind this campaign. It's effective and necessary. Sad thing is these people already know whats going on - they're just in denial. This campaign just reveals to them that there are alternatives.

No one I know has left Google because of the Scroogled campaign. They find the ads amusing but that doesn't drive them away.

Actually...not even I. Truth be told, I only have a Gmail account attached to YouTube. But both me and my friends, albeit we all have Gmail accounts, none of us uses them regularly. We all still use Hotmail (part of Outlook). And this aplies also to my friends with Android. They use Gmail for the phone but their regular mail is Hotmail.
So I don't think the Scroogled campaign has had any effect on any of us.

As far as search engine goes...yeah...none of us uses Bing. Sorry. The only ones who uses it more often is me and a friend who also has a WP (yes. From our circle of friends we're the only ones with WP). And that's because it comes attached to the phone through the "search" button. If I could replace the functionality of that search button for another search engine, I would have switched to Google there.

I use Bing everyday, without a single problem. Sometimes I have to use Google search simply because Google brings up better results for less, shall we say, "mainstream" results, but I definitely prefer Bing. However, when I recommend Bing to people, they say "oh, Bing? That crappy search engine from Microsoft? Haha, thanks but no thanks" and I'm sitting there thinking "just try it first before you slate it!". Oh, and I took the Bing vs Google challenge? Bing won, 4-1 ;)

I guess if you ignore the fact Google has had to change what is collected from Google Play store and are now being sued for reading emails in Gmail. MS also has a growing list of users that left Google Apps over at Office 365 that are big users. Also there is a version of Chromium being distributed and growing that strips out its spying back to Google.

I've been a WP user dating back to the days of my Samsung focus ... I hated google then, when we were denied an official YouTube app , and now. The only way for google to redeem themselves,in my eyes, is to finally approve the YouTube app that wp8 is capable of producing!

The thing about Google that drives me crazy is that it would never have made it if it weren't for Windows! And now, they're trying to off Microsoft. Google needs to quit trying to make their operating systems Chrome & Crapdroid, & focus on their services. They will never be a reliable software company. Their concept of an OS built upon web services (Chrome) is fundamentally flawed, & will never expand beyond novelty status. They're making money on Crapdroid because it's"cool" to have. But the reality is that it is the buggiest mobile OS out there. Windows '98 & Vista are flawless in comparison. The Play Store is the only leg it stands on.

HEY MICROSOFT!!! you want me to use bing, and praise bing on windows phone, then give me a robust search engine. I have the weblink for google on my phone pinned for one reason. SEARCH BY DATE...... Why bing doesnt have this blows my mind. SEARCH BY DATE, and ill switch over completely to bing

I say f**k Google. It's not like they were making their services available to WP8 anyway so it's not like Microsoft is burning any bridges. And to be quite honest, Bing's search results have gotten better while Google's have gotten worse, especially since they started censoring their results.

In all the years I've used Gmail and YouTube, I have not been Scroogled. I like Bing, maybe in a lot of ways more so than Google Search, but I am thankful for Google's services and am not thrilled with these ads. Microsoft needs marketing that highlights the benefits of its integrated services. Google needs in turn to bring their services more fully to Windows Phone. I would like to see the two companies cooperate in a way that benefits everyone.

I switched to Bing and duckduckgo at work and slowly migrated all my contacts and registered email address for various online services to a Live account. Completely independent of Google now that I have a WP8 device.

I think people will choose the engine based on their own experience for what they typically are searching for. And also this tends to be reevaluated on an ongoing basis. So if you prefer Google right now, but eventually find Bing to be better at some point, you will switch. I don't think campaigns or loyalty come into play. I still get the best results for what I search for, from Google. As soon as Bing does better for me, I will move. I would love to move right away, especially due to the integration in windows phone, but Bing is not there yet. Too bad. You can't BS people with search. It must win on its own merits.

I use this campaign idea for customer education when anyone ever wants to conduct business with sensitive info to a Gmail account , I refuse to divulge any personal info and put an addendum in my email signature that the content and attachments herein are intended only for the original recipient and do not have my consent to be shared or uploaded to Google mail or Google drive for privacy and security.

Well, in my opinion, having a live account is way better than Google's(Excel/PowerPoint and Word Web Apps for free, SkyDrive(I have like bonus 20gb of storage for free), and hotmail is not worse than Gmail and Bing never fails to find things on my phone too). But, I still use Gmail since I have over 100 accounts tied up to my Gmail and changing mails is not possible on some of the Russian and Stats keeping websites I use.